How much longer can golf survive?

It is very much the Ladies Professional Golf Association’s fault that it allowed a tattletale television viewer to call in and add four strokes to Lexi Thompson’s total at the ANA Inspiration tournament after she spotted a ball less than an inch from its original position.

Though both the United States Golf Association and Britain’s Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St.

Golf’s core audience is literally dying, and it’s affecting golf far beyond its television broadcasts.

built golf courses at a rate of roughly 400 a year during the 1980s and 1990s, it’s retreated from a peak of 16,000 courses.

still accounts for more than 40% of the world’s golf courses, according to the National Golf Foundation (NGF), the country has lost nearly 800 courses in the past decade.

Though optimists note that the average number of rounds being played per player hasn’t dropped, the U.S.

golf industry has been largely unable to woo beginners into playing more than a few rounds before dropping the sport entirely.

Nike NKE, -0.23% has stopped producing golf equipment, Dick’s Sporting Goods DKS, -0.46% is cutting sales-floor space dedicated to the sport and business is moving off the golf course.

If golf has little to offer this country but televised shots of manicured greens and galleries and living rooms of cranky, aging diehards, then it should prepare to take a seat beside horse racing among U.S.